Category: Infrastructure

WARSI QUIT OVER EUROPE TOO.

TORY TURMOIL.

No sooner had the Tory cat (David Cameron) gone off to Portugal, than the mice began to play back home. Sayeeda Warsi’s resigned and Boris Johnson threw down his Westminster gauntlet.

The press has concentrated on the criticism of the Prime Minister’s stance on Gaza but Warsi’s statement also contained significant criticism of his European Union policy and this was picked up by North West Tory MEP Saj Karim.

Karim began life as a Lib Dem MEP and clearly retains his pro European credentials. He joined Warsi’s criticism of the government’s Gaza policy saying Israel was being given more room than any other state but then went on to refer to the “directional shift” in European policy. He told the BBC that we would miss the advice of Ken Clarke and former Attorney General Dominic Grieve and could be embarked on a path to undermine our ability to negotiate concessions from the EU.

Ken Clarke has been the most prominent pro European Tory member of this Cabinet and Grieve’s sacking is widely believed to have been to clear the way for a fundamental reshaping of our relationship with the European Court of Human Rights.

Warsi’s resignation may be quickly forgotten, particularly if the Gaza ceasefire holds. However her criticism of the sacking of pro European cabinet members may be the first sign of a real fightback by the EU positive wing of the Conservative Party who have been silenced by the Eurosceptic madness that has swept the party up to now.

NO LEAP FOR THE SALMON.

After years of being called dull and boring the former Tory Chancellor Sir Geoffrey Howe had one great speech in him and it helped to bring down the mighty Margaret Thatcher.

Another former Chancellor, Alistair Darling has been similarly criticised for being dull. However on Tuesday those distinctive black eyebrows were fairly bristling during his debate with the leader of the Scottish Government, Alex Salmond. Darling believes we are better together and hammered away at what an independent Scotland would do for a currency. Mr Salmond, who had a great reception in Liverpool the other week, was deflated by the onslaught. It may have been Darling’s Geoffrey Howe moment and it may have saved the Union.

WHERE’S WARRINGTON?

I was travelling back from London the other day and it soon became apparent that the lady in front of me had got the wrong train. Instead of getting off at Milton Keynes, I told her the first stop would be Warrington. She phoned her waiting father with the bad news and in desperate tones asked him “Where is Warrington?”

The question had the fearful tone that I expect Russian dissidents expressed when they were told they were heading for exile in Novosibirsk, Siberia.

I don’t think she had ventured out of the South East before. The episode highlighted once again for me that for people living in the London area, the North is another country. It is a mindset which has influenced government policy and led to massive underinvestment in our transport infrastructure.

Let’s see if that’s going to change. It has taken years to begin to repair the damage done by the coalition in dismantling regional policy but now our big cities like Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool are trying to force the Chancellor to make real his pledge to create a powerhouse of the northern cities.

It may help that George Osborne is the MP for Tatton and will listen to demands for £15bn spending on trans Pennine transport links. He’s called the plan “imaginative” and promises a full response in the Autumn Statement.

Let’s see if big city power can deliver.

Follow me at www.jimhancock.co.uk

IT’S GRAND UP NORTH !

ILKLEY MOOR BAR HELMET

What a week for the North of England! Pride of place must go to the people of Yorkshire for the magnificent response to the Tour de France. From Leeds to the wonderfully named Buttertubs and all locations in between they came out in their thousands. The effort that was put in to make sure that every mile was decorated with bunting and yellow painted bikes was truly impressive.

Let’s hope that the Dales tourist industry gets the legacy benefit it deserves. God’s Own Country was on show to the world and Yorkshire seized its opportunity. Manchester’s Commonwealth Games put that city on the map, Yorkshire deserves no less.

MONEY MONEY MONEY

Then there were the announcements of infrastructure support from the Regional Growth Fund for projects across the North. You can tell the economy is improving and an election is coming.

However the public sector strikes this week lends some support to Labour’s claim that not everyone is sharing in the recovery. Since 2010 public sector pay has gone up 6.7% whilst prices have risen by 16%. The UK deficit is £107bn and the National Debt £1.3 trillion.

But can Labour win the election by pointing this out or will they be seen either as moaning minnies at the party or be held responsible for past economic errors? The party’s efforts to win public support are not being helped by continuing internal criticism of Ed Miliband’s leadership.

NORTHERN REVOLUTION

So with the cycling and the extra cash why do we need a Northern Revolution? That question was explored at a Downtown conference where the Chief Executive of Manchester City Council gave a very frank interview to a frank interviewer called Frank.

In a straight talking session with Downtown’s CEO Frank McKenna, Sir Howard Bernstein called for the abolition of the Highways Agency, praised Liverpool’s port but not its airport, forecast that the issue of congestion charging would return in Manchester, claimed John Prescott never “got” his plan for the city and was happy to have a debate on an elected mayor for the Greater Manchester sub region.

The interview came in the wake of similar pledges from the Conservative and labour parties on devolution of money and powers to northern cities. Sir Howard felt the promises were for real this time. This was because Scotland would be getting more influence over its own affairs whatever happened in the independence vote and because national delivery models didn’t work.

On the concept of a linear urban powerhouse from Liverpool to Leeds, Sir Howard welcomed the expansion of Liverpool’s port facilities and the Omega development near Warrington. Manchester needed to concentrate on the Northern Hub which would also help with connectivity to Leeds, Sheffield and Newcastle.

He did not favour the recreation of a Northern Way organisation but admitted it had helped turn the regeneration of Piccadilly Station from a local project into one starting to properly connect the North through the Hub. However the spending on transport in London was still ten times that of the north and Sir Howard forecast that the £20bn Crossrail 2 would soon be approved.

On airports, Sir Howard was in no doubt that Manchester was unambiguously the North’s main air hub. He claimed that the surge in low cost flights at Liverpool Airport was “artificial” caused by Manchester taking its eye off the ball. The market would decide the role of Liverpool, Blackpool, Leeds and Doncaster. In the latter case, any bid for improved rail links would need to be evidence based. He said the plans for Airport City had been ahead of their time but would now provide an ideal location for global companies.

Voters rejection of plans for congestion charging in Manchester in 2008 had been a rare setback for Sir Howard and council leader Sir Richard Leese but the Chief Executive said the issue would have to be revisited. The city also needed another inner ring road.

He was highly critical of the way the Highways Agency failed to connect with local government and felt its powers should be given to organisations like Transport for Greater Manchester.

Up to now there has been scepticism about elected mayors from officers and politicians in Manchester, but when asked about the Chancellor’s backing for an elected mayor covering the Greater Manchester Combined Authority area, Sir Howard said it was not an unreasonable question. He forecast that with increased powers the model on relying on ten part time political leaders might not have a future. He felt the politicians would know when it was time for change but it must not be imposed from above. It also should not be based on the London model where the boroughs were not integrated with Boris Johnson.

It is no secret that Manchester resented John Prescott’s regional policy,.Sir Howard believed that the former Deputy Prime Minister never appreciated the city’s model for regeneration and resented the fact that local Labour politicians had worked with Tories like Michael Heseltine and Michael Portillo on schemes like Metrolink.

TORIES DISCOVER NORTH SHOCKER!

Having swept away all the organisations that were helping the Northern economy, the Coalition government has spent the last few years building them up again.

Although the patchwork of Local Enterprise Partnerships(LEPs), Mayoral Zones and Regional Growth Funds will never make up for the lost coherence of the Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) in the North West and Yorkshire, there are signs that some LEPs are getting to grips with their task.

This is important as the Chancellor has signified this week that he may be getting serious about doing something to empower the North, sandwiched as it is between Scotland and London which both want for nothing in terms of government spending.

The Northern Way, which was the umbrella organisation for the northern RDAs, would have been the perfect organisation to deliver the trans Pennine HS3 rail link that George Osborne envisages. We will have to wait and see how the project is to be managed if this announcement is anything other than a smokescreen for the complete lack of a coherent policy for the North.

Another example of the government’s incoherence has been with elected mayors. First they wanted them just for cities and with no extra power. Now they want them for city regions with some real power and money.

Liverpool in particular could do with a city region mayor to bring democratic accountability to the LEP which has substantial achievements under its belt. A mayor who covered the whole sub region from Wirral to St Helens would also help solve the current impasse with the Liverpool Combined Authority (CA) of councils. This is caused by the fact that Phil Davies, the leader of Wirral, heads the organisation rather than the Mayor of Liverpool, Joe Anderson.

The government will have a tough job selling the concept of an elected mayor for the whole of Greater Manchester for a number of reasons. Manchester residents rejected the concept for their city, and there is already an elected mayor in Salford. Furthermore the LEP under chair Mike Blackburn, the Combined Authority under Lord Smith of Wigan and Manchester City Council led by Sir Richard Leese are already driving economic regeneration effectively.

The Liverpool LEP has an impressive record too, partly helped because it inherited the Mersey Partnership. It has 450 subscribing private sector members. Recent figures from the Office of National Statistics concerning growth rates shows Liverpool as ninth out of 39 LEPs in the UK.

Liverpool LEP is hoping to be allocated a good chunk of the £2bn Local Growth Fund to be announced soon and is coordinating the spending of 221 million Euros it has been allocated from European coffers.

Specific achievements include helping fibre optic company Tratos expand in Knowsley with the creation of 100 jobs. The LEPs Business Growth Grant will help create 2000 new jobs and the New Markets Programme, developed by the LEP is helping small businesses get a 35% subsidy for their growth plans. Meanwhile the Skills for Growth Bank, backed by the LEP has approved £2.5m for business growth.

The Liverpool LEP is headed up by Robert Hough who has patiently rebuilt an organisation to support business after being chairman of the North West Development Agency when it was swept away. A quietly efficient man who does not seek the headlines, his organisation’s profile might be improved if its boundaries were shared with an elected mayor for the same area.

Politicians bring campaigns and the media spotlight would then perhaps be turned on to the somewhat dry world of economic regeneration.

Personally I believe if the government wants city region mayors, they should legislate for them. There are enough referenda in the air at the moment.

In the meantime the Liverpool LEP will get on with the job of bringing employment to the City Region.

THE YEAR OF THE ECONOMIC TURN

The year ends with the Chancellor smirking and Ed Balls going red in the face.

The Tory baiting of Ed Balls during the Autumn Statement debate brought parliament to a new low, but Balls had wound them up for years with his flat lining gestures. They are now redundant. 2013 saw the debate move from double and triple dip recessions to modest optimism about growth. It would be handy if the recovery could be based on manufacturing and exports rather than consumer and housing spending in 2014, but at the moment George Osborne is winning the plaudits. Labour ends the year relying heavily on their argument that the cost of living is the real issue.

This Christmas the Conservatives find themselves in a strange position. They lag behind Labour in the polls but in normal circumstances, they would expect to be able to surge past the opposition with the usual pre election sweeteners in the last full year of the parliament. However uncertainty over UKIP and how they will perform against Lib Dems has led to a pessimistic spirit this festive season.

When the tuition fees issue was at its height, there were forecasts that the Lib Dems would be sending their MPs elected in 2015 to Westminster in a taxi again. This year they showed signs that the darkest years that saw them virtually cleared out of Town Halls in the north may be over. They held the Eastleigh by election and leader Nick Clegg got support for policies at his party conference that would have seen grass roots revolts under previous Lib Dem leaders.

Ed Miliband is never likely to gain the adulation that Tony Blair enjoyed before he took office in 1997 but this year he has strengthened his position as party leader. By focusing on the cost of living he struck a rapport with voters and forced Ministers to take notice. There are many questions around his promise of an energy price freeze but it has made the political weather this autumn.

Miliband also won plaudits for his stance on military intervention in Syria. It led directly to the Americans having second thoughts. Whilst the war drags on and the poor refugees suffer, we are in a better place in the Middle East overall. Chemical weapons have been removed in Syria and the Iranians are coming in from the diplomatic cold.

In local politics we saw the Conservative regime of Geoff Driver defeated in Lancashire whilst two leading females departed in less than happy circumstances. Marie Rimmer lost her battle for the leadership of St Helens Council whilst Salford Chief Executive Barbara Spicer fell out with the Mayor of Salford. Happily Barbara has a new job heading up the Skills Funding Agency. Personnel changes are the least of the problems for Town Halls set against the continuing rounds of spending cuts.

The possibility of an energy gap has become more real this year as we wrestle with the problem of keeping prices down whilst dealing with global warming. The weather was rarely out of the headlines in 2013. A bitter winter was followed by a great summer. The Philippines typhoon was followed by a major battering for the coasts of the North West and Yorkshire. Fracking and nuclear power have risen up the agenda this year.

We are likely to be better connected after decisions taken in 2013. Final plans for the new Mersey Gateway Bridge were approved; the northern Rail Hub in Manchester got the green light; and consultations began on HS2.

The year saw the death of two of the twentieth century’s great figures; Nelson Mandela and Margaret Thatcher. Their politics were very different but they both made a difference and that’s all we can hope to do each in our own way.

Have a peaceful Christmas